After a false start that fooled even the experts, it appears that sea ice has turned the corner, for real this time. NSIDC issued an update this week:
Update: 21 September 2010
Although ice extent appeared to reach a minimum on September 10, rising afterwards for three straight days, it has subsequently declined even further. NSIDC scientists are closely monitoring the ice extent and will provide another update on the data, as conditions develop.
Our season-end announcement in October will provide the final numbers for the minimum extent, as well as the monthly data for September, which scientists use for establishing long-term trends.
This is confirmed by the other sources:
What is of renewed interest though is what is going on in Antarctica:
While the Antarctic Ice never dipped below normal, the dip itself illustrates what I alluded to in Sea Ice News #22:
While the vagaries of wind and weather can still produce an about-face…
And just like the dip in the Arctic, the dip in the Antarctic is weather related, and is now rebounding with a change in weather.The sea ice on the edge of the Antarctic continent can be affected by winds and weather patterns in the same way as Arctic ice.
Speaking of weather, according to DMI the temperature in the Arctic continues to plummet:
Though, we may see some temperature rebound after the first or second week of October, as the Arctic Oscillation ensemble forecast calls for the AO to go positive then:
More on the impact of the AO in this graphic here (PDF)
And as we see in this CT comparison, the ice is refreezing rather quickly in the month of September:
Click to enlarge. Notice how the areas of lower concentration have disappeared.
Later this week, I’ll do a recap on who forecasted what and how the final tally looked.
Positive AO should cause the Arctic temps to go even further down. We live in interesting times (ESPECIALLY if October and early November have a positive AO followed by a hyper-negative AO for the winter)
Well, I was way off. I was expecting something closer to 2005/2006
The strangest thing about the flag for the false refreezing start, is that I watched the ice grow on the Google daily satellite images. I assume there are conditions in reading the Sea Ice signature through clouds that are most difficult, raising the degree of uncertainty.
“What is of renewed interest though is what is going on in Antarctica:”
That’s a great line!
That 2010 blue curve seems to have lost its sense of direction since mid-August.
The Cryosphere Today
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/
please see the 30-day animation
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/CT/animate.arctic.color.0.html
====
Maybe NSIDC lost their slush (data below 30% extent) and its giving them false readings overall? Their own charts don’t reflect any decline or am I missing something?
rbateman says:
September 26, 2010 at 10:54 am
The refreezing flag wasn’t false. People thought the extent minimum was Sept 10. It wasn’t, but the area minimum was Sept 9. However, the low-density ice around the perimeter was easily compacted, causing a late extent minimum after the refreeze. This also may factor in with the very rapid increase in extent post-minimum. According to JAXA, we’re at 389062 km^2 above the minimum already. The only year that had its Sept 25 value be that much above the minimum was 2002, which had its minimum Sept 9, 9 days before 2010’s minimum. We’re currently 7 days post-minimum extent, and the only year to gain extent this quickly after the minimum was 2007 (417813 km^2 in 7 days).
-Scott
Arctic Sea ice Growth: 1000 Manhattans per day
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/1000-manhattans-per-day/
John from CA says:
September 26, 2010 at 11:02 am
You mean, they had a second malfunction? No… you don’t say. How embarasking.
You can watch the process of slush forming which turns to ice in a day or two on the satellite images, but you see nothing on the satellite maps.
Scott says:
September 26, 2010 at 11:19 am
Oh, that is not what happened on the satellite images. The re-freeze began after the 10th of September.
Computer problems have nothing to do with what went on in the Arctic, which was misrepresented.
No 2007 sequence was observed.
The satellite maps are derived from the satellite images.
The ‘trick’ here is getting head-faked with the maps, when the images are what the maps are generated from.
Sorry, but there was no melt of any significance after the 10th. There was the opposite.
Nope, no correlation whatsoever with 2007. Not one bit.
I’m a bit surprised to not see the rapid re-freeze mentioned in the article. As I said above, extent is 389062 km^2 above the minimum right now, which is the 2nd highest differential in the JAXA record. At this point, in total 15% extent we’re much closer to 2009 (under by 237032 km^2) than to 2008 (above by 328906 km^2).
Area improvement from the minimum to Sept 25 is also the 2nd-highest since JAXA started, with 2004 beating 2010. However, 2000 blows away 2010 in that regard, as do many years before 2000, so maybe I’m making an issue out of a non-issue.
-Scott
REPLY: I did mention the refreeze. see the comparison images -Anthony
…looks mighty chilly up in Pt. Barrow, Alaska!
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam
I wonder if the satellites misjudge the sea ice extent as it pertains to shoreline? This is some of the more important ice for recovery, I believe. Not to mention its importance for polar bears, walruses etc.
From the “Field Log”:
Melt, 30 May–20 June 2010: Chris Petrich
Kerry Claffey started the summer season with daily snow and albedo measurements.
Fun on June 5, a polar bear tampers with snow depth sounders and radiometers. Hat-trick! This is the fifth season we deployed the Mass Balance Probe, and the third season in a row it got damaged by a bear (2008, 2009, 2010).
The year prior to that (2007), an Arctic fox chewed through some cables the day after we froze-in instruments.
—-
I guess someone forgot to send those critters the memo!
If you look at the minimum extent (the little down ripple in JAXA) for 2007, it is Sep 25th and it lies about three quarters of a million sq km below the rising 2010. How are they going to compare these two years?
To be fair rbateman,
The event they were talking about (Sept. 10) in relation to the point they issued the story (Sept. 21) and given the 1 day lag to display NSIDC information does appear to align to the bottom based on their criteria. They just issued the statement and then ice went dramatically up from there.
Maybe we should encourage them to issue more statements ; )
John from CA says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:25 pm
We should encourage them to revist the time period in question: Sept 11 – 21st.
After that glitch in the satellite data, why assume nothing else went wrong?
My guess is that time for real the AGW for 2010-2011 is over because the NH ice which they are so fond of will return to normal or above for the next 30 years watch that space!
A jumpy year for the trough of the Sea Ice curve. I still think that 5,301,000sqkm was a good prediction.
Does anyone know why this year was so jumpy?
Add almost another 102,000 km2 for the last 24 hours…ck out the graph heading straight up!..There was never any doubt in my mind…I’ve been consistent about that.
The all important snow cover in my mind is way above ave also..
http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_daily.php?ui_year=2010&ui_day=268&ui_set=2
It was nice to see the Doom & gloomers have a little excitement for awhile there..we can share some love can’t we?..but the ball is now back in our court you muddas!
rbateman says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:36 pm
John from CA says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:25 pm
We should encourage them to revist the time period in question: Sept 11 – 21st.
After that glitch in the satellite data, why assume nothing else went wrong?
===
Good point and maybe they’d like to put their criteria in context to other approaches like UI to explain the situation in a level headed scientific way.
If you step through the 30 day UI animation and look at the fringe 30% ice (blues) you’ll see the lower concentrations diminish as the central Arctic grows in concentration. So, it shouldn’t be difficult for NSIDC to attribute the changes in terms of winds etc.
After following the Sea Ice story for only a year or so, there really isn’t any excuse to spin sea ice extent. They know they started or hoped to start the satellite observations in 1979 at the bottom of this cycle.
2009-2010 was the top of the typical 60 year cycle so the next several years will be very interesting as long as Global Alarmism does shift to Global Cooling. In my opinion based on the Ice Cores, CO2 lags temperature rise and fall but runs with increased temperature. CO2 ppm should begin to fall in the net few years and lag the rise in temperature in 2039-2040.
rbateman says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:36 pm
John from CA says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:25 pm
We should encourage them to revist the time period in question: Sept 11 – 21st.
After that glitch in the satellite data, why assume nothing else went wrong?
_____________________________________________________________
What glitch?
The three gliches from Arctic Roos for the 2010 season, which are quite obvious in all three cases, and represents “unfiltered data” meaning that no one else bothered showing unfiltered data that has occasional glitches, as these are all too obvious, and would NEVER be included in a 2-day or 5-day average, or would show up as gaps in the data sets, as is abundantly clear just by looking at the 2002-1010 JAXA dataset.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Just to keep things in perspective, the Arctic 80N temp in context of the variance since 1979:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/TempGr/meanT_2010vs58-09.jpg
EFS_Junior says:
September 26, 2010 at 1:10 pm
It would be par for the couse, after the glitch, while a lot of time was spent correcting the glitched data, not enough attention was being paid to the running process of everyday data.
The call is to re-examine what happened AFTER the glitch, not that the glitch continued.
Is there a problem with reconciling the map compilations with the actual satellite images? I say there is.
You are assuming that all problems show up as missing data.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:02 pm
…looks mighty chilly up in Pt. Barrow, Alaska!
The first snow (defined as snow that will not melt until next spring) generally falls during the first week of October, when temperatures cease to rise above freezing during the day. October is usually the month with the heaviest snowfall, with at least a trace of snow virtually every day and an average total accumulation of about 7 in (18 cm).[10] Snow can also fall in the summer.
Snow has come a little early this year…When does this GW thang kick in?
Dinostratus says:
September 26, 2010 at 1:03 pm
A jumpy year for the trough of the Sea Ice curve. I still think that 5,301,000sqkm was a good prediction.
Does anyone know why this year was so jumpy?
_____________Reply; My guess would be the change in ionization in the tropical air mass reaching the arctic as a direct result of the two concurrent [melting during the flush of air into the arctic] episodes of hurricane production, with Earl, and Igor bringing in massive amounts of warm moisture laden air mass with more positive ion content.
Ice is a bipolar crystal and needs a couple spare electrons to form in super cooled atmospheric conditions, or to stay frozen in sea ice or glaciers. Glacial surging has been shown to occur simultaneously with incursions of more positively ionized air masses, and I would assume that it is part of the formation process of rotten sea ice, that allows the hardness of the crystal structure to loosen.
With Earl’s out wash that swept up the East side of Greenland I watched the ice cover of the area along the Russian coast melt as the satellite photos showed the air mass cross the area then head back South across Western Canada. Both times there was whiteout snow conditions on the floating North pole camera, but more of it for Earl than Igor.
The ratio of Antarctic to Arctic ice may be due to the polarity of the solar wind due to the solar system declinational positions of the outer planets relative to the ecliptic plane as we pass them heliocentrically, giving rise to the long term oscillations as the planetary declinations go above and below the ecliptic plane.
The polar ice trends may have this extra terrestrial drive to their patterns of increase and decrease, with annual drives due to the 13 month period of heliocentric conjunctions with Jupiter and Saturn interactions, more work needs to be done looking for resultant patterns due to the compounding of the many separate periods.
So as a test maybe next year we will see these same dips in ice area occur a month later? Were they seen a month later last year?
Were they seen a month
laterearlier last year?rbateman says:
September 26, 2010 at 1:49 pm
EFS_Junior says:
September 26, 2010 at 1:10 pm
It would be par for the couse, after the glitch, while a lot of time was spent correcting the glitched data, not enough attention was being paid to the running process of everyday data.
The call is to re-examine what happened AFTER the glitch, not that the glitch continued.
Is there a problem with reconciling the map compilations with the actual satellite images? I say there is.
You are assuming that all problems show up as missing data.
_____________________________________________________________
Again, what glitch?
I don’t see 18 glitches, and I don’t see one glitch, I see 3 glitched in “unfiltered data” from one website, Arctic Roos.
Be specific with links to appropriate websites as mentioned below (i. e. JAXA, Bremen, NSIDC, Arctic Roos, DMI, and UIUC).
There are three for 2010 shown at Arctic Roos, are you suggesting that all three glitches from 2010 be reexamined, otherwise you are showing a clear bias in only selecting one glitch, very subjective IMHO.
As per official reporting from the six main sea ice extent/area reporting sites, JAXA, Bremen, NSIDC, Arctic Roos, DMI, and UIUC.
I need to see an official link from any of the above six groups that discusses in some detail the glitch(es), and any proported aftereffects you think may have occured, or have assumed did occur.
At this point it is 100% pure subjective conjecture on your part.
Oh, and when you look at satallite imagery, that is subjective and it is definitely not objective by any means, getting raw data with good signal-to-noise ratios, removal of data spikes, etceteras, post-processing, and quality control gives one something called objective data collection and reporting.
I suggest you email Arctic Roos directly yourself to clear up any confusion you may have at your end.
Adios.
Unprecedented!
I’m waiting for revelations of “Hansen” adjustments to these charts as well..
rbateman says:
September 26, 2010 at 11:44 am
Did you even read the text of my comment? I said that area started increasing at that time…aka refreeze. However, extent dropped later on due to compaction and/or melting at the edges.
Multiple databases showed extent to drop after the 10th, so I don’t know what computer problems you’re referring to.
There was a bit of melt at some of the edges, but it was far overshadowed by refreezing of the core. Thus, area increased like I said. The decrease in extent had little to do with the melting.
For extent, R^2 for JAXA extent (2010 vs other years):
2008 = 0.765
2003 = 0.641
2007 = 0.575
2006 = 0.504
(the rest are all below 0.5)
So it looks like there is some correlation to 2007’s extent after all.
Area correlations in September are particularly interesting. To date, 2010 is correlating with 2009 at R^2 = 0.622, with the several years immediately before that being lower. Going way back, 1983 shows the best correlation at a robust R^2 = 0.818. I wonder if that will hold throughout the rest of the month. If so, we can expect an area of 3528061 km^2 for Sept 30. I’m guessing we’ll see a much higher number than that (we could see that number posted for today even), so I expect this correlation to degrade a bit in these last few days of Sept.
-Scott
EFS_Junior says:
September 26, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Again, what glitch?
Nice circular reason to not look.
Are you telling me you weren’t looking?
I say discrepancy after the fact, you say what glitch.
I say images, you say maps.
You still haven’t come to grips with the difference between the two.
One is the actual view from above the Earth, the latter is a pretty picture.
My guess would be the change in ionization in the tropical air mass reaching the arctic as a direct result of the two concurrent [melting during the flush of air into the arctic] episodes of hurricane production, with Earl, and Igor bringing in massive amounts of warm moisture laden air mass with more positive ion content.
Ice is a bipolar crystal and needs a couple spare electrons to form in super cooled atmospheric conditions, or to stay frozen in sea ice or glaciers. Glacial surging has been shown to occur simultaneously with incursions of more positively ionized air masses, and I would assume that it is part of the formation process of rotten sea ice, that allows the hardness of the crystal structure to loosen.
With Earl’s out wash that swept up the East side of Greenland I watched the ice cover of the area along the Russian coast melt as the satellite photos showed the air mass cross the area then head back South across Western Canada. Both times there was whiteout snow conditions on the floating North pole camera, but more of it for Earl than Igor.
The ratio of Antarctic to Arctic ice may be due to the polarity of the solar wind due to the solar system declinational positions of the outer planets relative to the ecliptic plane as we pass them heliocentrically, giving rise to the long term oscillations as the planetary declinations go above and below the ecliptic plane.
The polar ice trends may have this extra terrestrial drive to their patterns of increase and decrease, with annual drives due to the 13 month period of heliocentric conjunctions with Jupiter and Saturn interactions, more work needs to be done looking for resultant patterns due to the compounding of the many separate periods.
So as a test maybe next year we will see these same dips in ice area occur a month later? Were they seen a month later last year?
You took the words right out of my mouth Mr. Holle…I need a Beer…
At this point it is 100% pure subjective conjecture on your part.
All Sea Ice Extents and Areas are subjective processes which can go very wrong without someone keeping an eye on the results as compared to the images they are taken from.
Part of the deal is keeping an eye on things, that’s what we do in here.
We don’t accept spoon feeding, we look for ourselves, and we ask questions.
rbateman says:
September 26, 2010 at 2:57 pm
At this point it is 100% pure subjective conjecture on your part.
All Sea Ice Extents and Areas are subjective processes which can go very wrong without someone keeping an eye on the results as compared to the images they are taken from.
Part of the deal is keeping an eye on things, that’s what we do in here.
We don’t accept spoon feeding, we look for ourselves, and we ask questions.
_____________________________________________________________
You can lead a horse to water …
At least I know I’m not the horse in this merry-go-round.
At least get a clue on “subjective” versus “objective” where your own eyes are incapable of making “objective” measurements, and there is DAQ (data acquisition) for making “objective” measurements.
If you have issues with the data contact the seven organizations directly firsthand YOURSELF, since you would appear to be one of those people from THE AUDIT TEAM.
Joe Romm had declared victory. Must have been premature. How many boats made the NW passage this year?
rbatemen writes,
“We don’t accept spoon feeding, we look for ourselves, and we ask questions.”
Nothing could be less apt as a description of this site. Any post attacking climate scientists wins immediate praise from many posters who ask no questions so long as it fits their preconceptions.
A few voices might come in later, expressing actual skepticism, but most often these are not from the self-professed “skeptics.” They might point out that the radical new claims about Venus involve a misapplication of the ideal gas law, or those calculations for the volume of a pyramid contain an elementary mistake, or you can’t interpret a regression line fit to a sine wave like that, or those two Hansen graphs really involve two different datasets, or that “temperature anomalies” mean something different than “temperature,” or the paper was written only about one proxy from one core in the Chukchi Sea, or what Schmidt et al. wrote about unreliable tree rings was relevant and true … and so on.
And when such actually skeptical posts are actually made here, many regulars attack the writers for asking asking questions.
The passive microwave-derived sea ice “maps” are not “images” only because microwaves are not light….Darnit why are we BLIND to so much of the electromagnetic spectrum?
Gneiss says:
September 26, 2010 at 4:41 pm
rbatemen writes,
“We don’t accept spoon feeding, we look for ourselves, and we ask questions.”
Nothing could be less apt as a description of this site. Any post attacking climate scientists wins immediate praise from many posters who ask no questions so long as it fits their preconceptions.
_____________________________________________________________
Exactly!
A de facto pattern emerges. especially at the start of the first few dozen replies to a poster article.
The Yes People all line up and throw off their best one liners.
I get the distince impression that The Yes People are truly blinded by real science as opposed to WUWT science.
Go figure.
Gneiss says:
September 26, 2010 at 4:41 pm
“And when such actually skeptical posts are actually made here, many regulars attack the writers for asking asking questions.”
=====================
Freedom reigns!
Sorry.
“Though, we may see some temperature rebound in the first and second week of October, as the Arctic Oscillation ensemble forecast calls for the AO to go positive then”…
================================
I thought that in a positive AO during fall and winter, it is typically very cold in the Arctic.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
EFS_Junior says:
September 26, 2010 at 5:14 pm
I get the distince impression that The Yes People are truly blinded by real science as opposed to WUWT science.
=====================================
Ahhh…. by “real science” do you mean the CAGW orthodoxy?
Or by “real science” do you mean “Real Climate”?
Talk about Yes Men.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Gneiss says:
September 26, 2010 at 4:41 pm
“Nothing could be less apt as a description of this site.”
==============================
Then go find a site that suits your needs, Gneiss.
The worlds a big place….and if you don’t like it here, then leave.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
savethesharks writes,
“Ahhh…. by “real science” do you mean the CAGW orthodoxy?”
I’m going to take a guess here that by “real science,” EFS meant not the “CAGW orthodoxy” bogeyman but rather, science done by actual scientists in their area of expertise, written up and published in journals after review by other actual scientists who also are experts in that area.
“Or by “real science” do you mean “Real Climate”?”
All of the writers for Realclimate are real scientists, aren’t they?
“Talk about Yes Men.”
Yes! I have noticed they predominate here. Frequently angry, adding their own accusations and invective against whoever the WUWT writer has invited them to jeer at. Often, it seems that even the original writer has not read what he’s attacking, and the Yes Men feel no need to, they jeer on cue.
EFS_Junior says: “At least I know I’m not the horse in this merry-go-round.”
But Junior, you are the horse. Be objective for once. (sorry, two-liner there)
EFS_Junior says:
September 26, 2010 at 3:42 pm
What AUDIT team are you talking about?
I get the distinct impression that a nerve has been hit.
Galileo-“But sirs, the Earth orbits the sun I have proof!”
Vatican Scientists-“It is clear all who believe the
Ptolemaic Universe, that quite obviously,the Earth is the
center of all things, and that the sun and stars are fixed to
their individual spheres!”
“That is clearly the scientific consensus!! ”
“Heretic!”
Sound familiar?
Gneiss says:
September 26, 2010 at 6:15 pm
============================
They are getting desperate….
The computer output is sacrosanct, it is beyond questioning. The Concensus is the Law. No, not really.
There is a a human interactive program called Galaxy Zoo. It came into being because the computer program is not able to make judgement calls in picking out important structure in distant galaxies. Sloan Digital Sky Survey initiated Galaxy Zoo to get thousands of amatuer astronomers to contribute to classifying millions of distant galaxies that the computer program balked on. They found it to be a smashing success, and I recommend it to anyone.
You see, a computer program is only as good as the instructions given to it. When it comes to the edges of resolution, the human eye is much better because it is attached to a brain.
I also encourage folks to watch the Sea Ice Images. No, not the pretty colored ones, the ones that are direct off the satellites.
Great stuff.
Sorry, my last post was not clear.
The “they” I was referring to were the individuals who deliberately try to hijack this thread hurling insults.
As I said before, if this is not the site for you, then move along to another one that is.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
One question I had about the original post above:
The Arctic Oscillation is forecast to go positive in the coming weeks. Shouldn’t this signify colder temperatures for the pole region, and not a rebound?
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
REPLY: Yeah, that was poorly worded, fixed. Thanks -A
If as we suspect it’s the warm currents that cause the ice to melt, then it makes sense that these warmer waters SHOULD freeze faster due to the Mpemba effect.
i.e. The faster the ice melts (due to warmer than usual waters), the faster it should rebound once the air T’s drop below freezing.
Gneiss says:
September 26, 2010 at 6:15 pm
savethesharks writes,
“Ahhh…. by “real science” do you mean the CAGW orthodoxy?”
I’m going to take a guess here that by “real science,” EFS meant not the “CAGW orthodoxy” bogeyman but rather, science done by actual scientists in their area of expertise, written up and published in journals after review by other actual scientists who also are experts in that area.
Do you have any idea how archaically snobbish you sound? As I enter the third decade of a scientific career I dont feel in the slightest shocked and awed by mention of peer reviewed publication. We all know full well – as the ClimateGate emails have revealed for all time – the sordid reality of chums rubber-stamping eachothers “scientific” offerings and lynching and silencing dissenters, outsiders and others whose bottoms dont smell right. The principal “expertise” you will find in the corridors of government funded climate temples is expertise in byzantine mafiosa-politicing and media posturing.
Peer-reviewed CAGW sermons from godfather-reviewed tracts such as Nature will continue to get the contempt they deserve from this site.
We still do not have enough data about ice cover for any rational idea as to what is ‘normal’ ice cover. 31 years are not enough. In fact we may never establish what is called ‘normal’. This would not surprise me in the least.
Nightvid Cole says:
September 26, 2010 at 4:46 pm
The passive microwave-derived sea ice “maps” are not “images” only because microwaves are not light….Darnit why are we BLIND to so much of the electromagnetic spectrum?
————————-
so, which would you say is better? considering at microwave frequencies the shape etc of the crystal the snow/ice consists of determines exactly how much is absorbed, and thus how much is measured & calculated by the algorithm.
All a bit quiet without R Gates throwing in his “luke warmer” grenades. Perhaps he has smelt the coffee?
“After a false start that fooled even the experts, it appears that sea ice has turned the corner, for real this time.”..
Fooling the experts? When ‘experts’ are fooled, do they not learn something from the experience? How were the experts fooled? What did the learn?
The ex-Hurricanes seem to have formed a Club, lining the Canada/Greenland South Shore of the Arctic Ocean.
?? Afraid to get their toes in the Water ??
Ships still report melting in the West – – water still Hot – – but it is being overwhelmed. Will that continue ? I expected melting into October. And the AO reverse MIGHT do that… But Long-Range Forecasts at WetterCentrale say they’ll combine into a BIG LOW covering the Central Arctic – – like lasted all of July. So I think that was it.
Last minimums recorded were probably both Topaz Reference extents, which only turned up on the 23rd.
Compared to Previous Years, 2010s 16 indexes said:
LOWEST = 1 Volume (3900 km3 to 4850=2007, 6000=2008, 5800=2009).
Second = 1 Area, 1 Extent
Third = 2 Area, 6 Extent
This is a clear Progression: Volume to Area to Extent: this implies 2010 had Record Least Ice Quantity – – the unusual Wind pattern spread it out more . PS: 5 indexes cannot be rated as had no record for 2008 (TOPAZ, NANSEN). Hamburg updated only to the 17th (bi-monthly), I’ll whip up a final total at latest when that updates again.
Next Year ? as this La Nina (cold) is SO strong, I’d expect a proportional increase in volume = twice or more 2008s gain. Is 2010 destined to be the new 60/65-year Cycle’s Minimum ? ? Hmmm .
PSS: Re: Scott’s reference to 1983 gaining like 2010 …
– – 1983 produced the PEAK of submarine-measured Thickness.
Since we’ve passed the minimum it looks like most of the people interested in discussing numbers have left, but I’ll give it a go anyway.
Another large gain in extent today, now 325468 km^2 above 2008 on Sept 26, while 210000 below 2009. If these high rates of gain continue, I suspect we’ll be within 100000 km^2 of 2009 on Sept 30 and will surpass it in the first week of Oct (heck, I’ll lay down an ambitious guess of passing it on Oct 3). I initially thought 2010 had a chance to have an average Sept extent closer to 2009 than 2008, but it looks like it’ll fall a bit short now.
The rapid rate of extent increase is evident in the “predicted minimum” using current extent. It’s kind of silly to use this after the minimum, but it’s a great basic tool for comparing the regrowth to other years. For a value of 5270781 km^2 on Sept 26, using 2002-2009 numbers to back-predict the minimum extent yields a value of 5071097 km^2, which is 257503 km^2 higher than the actual minimum. So wow, we’ve seen a rapid regrowth.
-Scott
phlogiston says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:40 am
Peer-reviewed CAGW sermons from godfather-reviewed tracts such as Nature will continue to get the contempt they deserve from this site.
================================
Well said!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
“The sea ice on the edge of the Antarctic continent can be affected by winds and weather patterns in the same way as Arctic ice.”
Speaking of which, I was watching the PIPS2 ice displacement this week (http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/pips2/idis.html) and saw that wind was dispersing the ice edge in the western arctic the whole time, so not a surprise that extent is growing fast. Didn’t anyone else notice?
Scott says:
September 27, 2010 at 8:35 am
So wow, we’ve seen a rapid regrowth.
==============================
And no doubt due in part to the average to below-average temperatures for the summer above 80N and now into the fall, right? Eyeballing the readings 2007, 2008 and 2009 this time, they were much above normal.
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/meant80n.uk.php
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Richard Holle says:
September 26, 2010 at 1:03 pm
Does anyone know why this year was so jumpy?
_____________
I didn’t watchEarl but I did watch Igor. For what its worth this is my take. The hurricane lifted tones of air into the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. As it moved north the the stratosphere lowers which pushed the cold air to the surface. A couple days before Igor entered Baffin Bay the surface temperatures in Alert was -20, and temperatures at Nord and Greenland Summet were also very cold.
When Igor arrived there was a hugh temperature gradient (approx 30C) between the ice sheet and Baffin Island. Coupled with what was left of the hurricane if created gale force winds. I saw one reading of 55 knots. This stired up the water and brings cold water up to the surface. The mixing of the cold air and moist air brought some snow to the area.
But that is not all that has happened there. On the weekend a CME arrived and sent the Geomagnetic readings from Churchill north into overdrive. It has caused the stratosphere to warm and more cold air forced down. This has formed a series of lows across the north and there has been snow from the Yukon to Greenland and is forcast to continue this week. Even if the snow melts it still cools the land and water. The ice should have a good week.
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
September 26, 2010 at 12:02 pm
…looks mighty chilly up in Pt. Barrow, Alaska!
http://seaice.alaska.edu/gi/observatories/barrow_webcam
A bit above average all month…
http://www.wunderground.com/history/airport/PABR/2010/9/27/MonthlyHistory.html#calendar
jakers says:
September 27, 2010 at 11:12 am
I don’t watch the PIPS 2.0 stuff, though I do see the general ice movement from CTs maps. The phenomenon you’re mentioning likely did help cause a rapid increase in extent, but as I mentioned earlier, the increase in area after reaching the minimum is also the 2nd highest in the last 10 years, so there has definitely been a good chunk of refreezing in addition to dispersal increases.
-Scott
phlogiston says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:40 am
Gneiss says:
September 26, 2010 at 6:15 pm
savethesharks writes,
“Ahhh…. by “real science” do you mean the CAGW orthodoxy?”
I’m going to take a guess here that by “real science,” EFS meant not the “CAGW orthodoxy” bogeyman but rather, science done by actual scientists in their area of expertise, written up and published in journals after review by other actual scientists who also are experts in that area.
Do you have any idea how archaically snobbish you sound? As I enter the third decade of a scientific career I dont feel in the slightest shocked and awed by mention of peer reviewed publication. We all know full well – as the ClimateGate emails have revealed for all time – the sordid reality of chums rubber-stamping eachothers “scientific” offerings and lynching and silencing dissenters, outsiders and others whose bottoms dont smell right. The principal “expertise” you will find in the corridors of government funded climate temples is expertise in byzantine mafiosa-politicing and media posturing.
Peer-reviewed CAGW sermons from godfather-reviewed tracts such as Nature will continue to get the contempt they deserve from this site.
_____________________________________________________________
Well, in about two years I’ll be entering my 5th decade of a research career in hydrodynamics, but let’s just say we should dispense with the “appeals to authority” fallicies, shall we?
The rest of your comment is utter gibberish.
That is all.
Ah, too bad it’s over for the year. Not much to draw me here for quite a while then.
phlogiston says:
September 27, 2010 at 12:40 am
As I enter the third decade of a scientific career I dont (sic) feel…
Gee, I feel sorry for ya if you feel that way about your chosen field. Please, find another line of work, as I can’t imagine you being effective any longer!!!
EFS_Junior says:
September 27, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Well, in about two years I’ll be entering my 5th decade of a research career in hydrodynamics, but let’s just say we should dispense with the “appeals to authority” fallicies, shall we?
======================
Appeals to authority?
That’s not an appeal to authority fallacy. He’s just talking about his experience.
And if it IS a fallacy [it is not], then aren’t you engaging in the same one?
Potcallingkettleblackimus Maximus.
-Chris
JK says:
Gee, I feel sorry for ya if you feel that way about your chosen field. Please, find another line of work, as I can’t imagine you being effective any longer!!
=================================
That is a total non sequitur fallacy. DOES NOT FOLLOW, dude!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Preliminary JAXA number up for Sept 27….5322188 km^2. Preliminary gain of 51407 km^2. Lately, pretty much all of the revised numbers have shown an increase over the preliminary numbers. Sept 26’s number increased by about 40000 km^2, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one get up there to another massive gain in the 70-90k range.
If this really is due to dispersion, shouldn’t it be slowing or need to a single-day loss pretty soon? Unless area stops increasing so rapidly, I’m going to assume it’s due to real refreezing.
-Scott
savethesharks says:
September 27, 2010 at 7:59 pm
EFS_Junior says:
September 27, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Well, in about two years I’ll be entering my 5th decade of a research career in hydrodynamics, but let’s just say we should dispense with the “appeals to authority” fallicies, shall we?
======================
Appeals to authority?
That’s not an appeal to authority fallacy. He’s just talking about his experience.
And if it IS a fallacy [it is not], then aren’t you engaging in the same one?
Potcallingkettleblackimus Maximus.
-Chris
_____________________________________________________________
At least TRY to read through, and understand, a comment in it’s entirety?
He mentioned experience (a logical fallacy via argument from authority).
I made the same argument (ditto).
I also stated “let’s just say we should dispense with the “appeals to authority” fallicies (sic fallacies), shall we?”
Why make the original comment to begin with, if it has no bearing whatsoever on the discussion at hand?
If it is a valid point (and I don’t agree that it does), than my much greater experience with peer review (of that I have no doubt) is relevant with respect to the peer review process. However, the subsequent an hominem gibberish by the original poster still stands, it is/was utter gibberish.
Why is it utter jibberish? Simple answer is that peer review is the best game in town, always has been, always will be. Blogs, bloggers, and blogging notwithanding.
Henry chance says:
September 26, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Joe Romm had declared victory. Must have been premature. How many boats made the NW passage this year?
_________________________________
18, up from 9 last year, including 2 that circumnavigated both passages.
Andy
EFS_Junior says:
September 27, 2010 at 9:21 pm
========================
The sheer arrogance and apparent desperation, is noted.
Keep talking….
[Note to self: If he is such a scientist of note, then maybe, being that, he would drop all this nonsense and get back to his research. Hmmm. Interesting.]
-Chris
EFS_Junior says:
September 27, 2010 at 9:21 pm
However, the subsequent an hominem gibberish by the original poster still stands, it is/was utter gibberish. Why is it utter jibberish? Simple answer is that peer review is the best game in town, always has been, always will be.
========================
Peer review is the “best game in town.”??
Perhaps in an ideal world, yes.
But the current world that represents FAR from ideal. As a matter of fact….current “peer review” is the exact opposite of which it was intended.
It was not intended to become another Inquisition.
After all, this is science, not religion, right?
What are you trying to protect? What is your agenda for being so vitriolic here?
-Chris
Scott says:
September 27, 2010 at 8:38 pm
If this really is due to dispersion, shouldn’t it be slowing or need to a single-day loss pretty soon? Unless area stops increasing so rapidly, I’m going to assume it’s due to real refreezing.
-Scott
============================
Scott, To what do you attribute the rapid refreezing, if indeed that is the case?
Seems the avg. temp now at about 13.5 F above 80 N might have something to do with it, but I would like to hear a technician’s interpretation [yours] of what’s going on.
-Chris
JK says:
September 27, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Gee, I feel sorry for ya if you feel that way about your chosen field. Please, find another line of work, as I can’t imagine you being effective any longer!!!
OK my comment was a tad OTT. But its not surprising to find that you have no imagination. I’m working in commercial research in a fast growing technology company, doing OK thanks. What I’ve found is that you get rewarded for performance in the commercial sector while in academia it is 50% politics. In general, the raison d’etre of academic research is to create problems while that of commercial research is to solve them.
savethesharks says:
September 27, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Hi Chris,
Well clearly it takes cold weather to freeze the Arctic. However, I have no expertise and only follow the numbers themselves. That’s why I was posting here…hoping someone else could give me some insight (such as it being colder this year than in previous years or something). I’m also interested in hearing what people have to say on what the effect will be.
Presumably, a few days or weeks of freeze will result in thicker ice that might withstand next year’s melt season better (2008 also had a rapid refreeze, and 2009 showed massive gains…the largest in the JAXA extent record and the third-largest in the CT area record of over 30 years). The 2009 refreeze was much slower, and despite starting more than 542000 km^2 ahead of 2008, 2009 was passed by 2008 in extent on Oct 7. 2009 area was passed on Oct 6 despite a head start of over 420000 km^2. Note that 2008 never looked back and was ahead of 2009 by about 1 million km^2 by the end of Oct. 2009 didn’t get ahead again until 2010 (March 7) in the late “bump up”…at this point, all new ice was extremely thin and provided little buffering to melt/loss (thus the record high loss rates in May/June). Oddly, extent showed similar behavior when looking at Oct/Nov, but 2009 had re-passed 2008 by Dec 17.
In summary, 2008 had a rapid refreeze and the next year showed a large gain. 2009 had a slower refreeze and 2010 showed a large loss. I know this is anecdotal, but I’ll go back and look at the whole record to see how this trend holds up. Physically, a mechanism would be that the driving force for new ice is cold weather (and from a heat transfer perspective is proportional to T_melt-T_air).
Hmm, I’m glad you asked the question now, as this observation has given me something new to look into when trying to predict next year’s ice behavior. A big deal is made about multi-year ice, but if a rapid refreeze can add a significant extra thickness to the new ice (and presumably add thickness to older ice too), that may also be important.
-Scott
Scott, Thanks for that thorough reply. Very interesting.
-Chris
Why would anyone believe what NSIDC says? I used to work there, and on one project the scientist whom I was working for wasn’t getting realistic results from his modle so he told me to arbitrarily change all the snow depths so that his results would match the observations better. As far as I know, he never mentioned in any of his publications that we had “enhanced” the data.
P.S. I forbade him from listing my name as a co-author on any journal article because of this.
NSIDC is pretty much of a joke. One of my last assignments there was to modify a program that was written by their “lead programmer”. This program was the absolutely most pathetic hack job that I’ve ever seen. It unbelievably had no less than 108 IF statements in the main function alone. The exact same if test was performed at 7 different places in the same function. It had an IF…ELSE IF…ELSE IF… block that was so long that it took more than 4 pages to print out. And everybody else there thought that it was a great program! Those people are clueless!
P.S. I forgot to mention that the absurd computer program that I discussed in my previous post is the program that NSIDC uses to compute sea ice concentration!
P.S. P.S. The original author admitted to me that for one part of one of the most widely used sea ice concentration algorithms she just assumed that she had done the programming correctly because the output looked like what she expected it to look like.
So I know R. Gates seems to have disappeared for now, but I came across this paper while doing a literature search the other day:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;161/3842/690?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&andorexacttitleabs=and&andorexactfulltext=and&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=161&firstpage=690&resourcetype=HWCIT
Title is “MAGNESIUM SULFATE INTERACTIONS IN SEAWATER FROM SOLUBILITY MEASUREMENTS”
We know R. Gates isn’t an expert in sea ice, but I’m wondering if this could be the same guy since there is a correlation there and we know R. Gates has an honest interest in the sea ice status.
-Scott
I would not give R Gates that much credit, Scott. I remember him admitting many posts back more than once, that he was NOT a scientist.
[And of course, I am not one either, and I know another non-scientist when I see one.. 😉 ]
Also, there were too many giveaways in his posts that he sort of knew what he was talking about…but at the end of the day…he did not know what he was talking about.
He never listened to others either who had superior technical understanding of the subject, either. Like an automaton, he delivered the same agenda-driven responses every time.
Also his naive use of technical jargon was a clue: “We know that AGW [sic] models say this….and that.”
I don’t think this could be the same one.
The one on this blog just does not have the pedigree to actually be a researcher.
[Or, in light of the poster Jeff’s damning allegations about the NSIDC, maybe he does LOL].
Interestingly, there is no R Gates on faculty or research staff as listed on the website:
http://www-po.coas.oregonstate.edu/people/
-Chris
Jeff says:
September 28, 2010 at 4:37 pm
========================
Jeff, have you contacted Anthony?
If what you are saying is true, he might be interested in what you would have to report, for sure.
We all would, for that matter.
-Chris
savethesharks wrote:
“Jeff, have you contacted Anthony?
If what you are saying is true, he might be interested in what you would have to report, for sure.
We all would, for that matter.”
I guess that I was assuming that Mr. Watts reads these threads. He seems to participate in a fair number of them. As far as whether it’s true, I have a nephew who is a lawyer so I’m well aware of the risks of making libelous statements. I posted under my real name and anyone from NSIDC who reads my posts will know who made them, which does not worry me a bit.
You’ll need to post more proof than that Jeff if you’re going to have any credibility with your statements about NSIDC.
Andy
The program that I referred to is called pmalgos, and it is a program that they distribute to the public. It can be obtained at
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/tools/pmsdt/
The problems with that program are rather obvious.
The research project in which we performed the data “enhancement” was one in which snowdepth was a significant factor. I’m not going to discuss it further because some might figure out the identity of the scientist (who is a very nice person), other than to say that it was not Mark Serreze or Walt Myer.
Another massive gain yesterday. CT area showed an increase of 108842 km^2. Since the minimum, we’ve gained 624214 km^2, now the highest gain from the minimum in the last 10 years! Remember that there were plenty of years 1979-2000 with bigger increases though.
JAXA extent was also impressive, with a gain of 105157 km^2 yesterday. This makes 2010 the first year in the JAXA record with more than one 100000+ km^2 single-day gains in Sept. And the gain is steady – in the last 4 days, we’ve set the 3rd, 4th, and 5th largest single-day gains in the JAXA Sept record. We still have two more days left in Sept too. 🙂
Earlier I’d said I expected us to be within 100000 km^2 of 2009’s extent by the month’s end and that we would pass it on Oct 3 (and on Steve Goddard’s site I said we’d pass 2009’s area by Oct 5). The gain has been much faster than I expected, I we may pass both in Sept, though I think Oct 1-2 is a more likely possibility. We’re 101628 km^2 behind in area, and only 50937 km^2 back in extent.
The real question is whether these rapid gains have much meaning…
-Scott
Jeff said
September 28, 2010 at 11:55 pm
The program that I referred to is called pmalgos, and it is a program that they distribute to the public. It can be obtained at
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/pub/tools/pmsdt/
The problems with that program are rather obvious.
The research project in which we performed the data “enhancement” was one in which snowdepth was a significant factor. I’m not going to discuss it further because some might figure out the identity of the scientist (who is a very nice person), other than to say that it was not Mark Serreze or Walt Myer.
____________________________________________
Put up or shut up.
Andy
AndyW says:
September 29, 2010 at 10:54 am
I absolutely agree with Andy here. Jeff, if you’re going to talk about this on open forum, then you’ll need to show evidence. If your lawyer relative has really advised you in this regard, then he would have told you to keep some sort of hard evidence as proof.
Honestly, I’ve seen enough incompetence and agenda-driven behavior in my graduate work to not be surprised by anything. But until you show real evidence of what you’re saying, there’s no reason for us to believe you (and even if we do believe you, it doesn’t go anywhere unless you have evidence). Misspelling Dr. Meier’s name definitely hurts your credibility too.
-Scott
JAXA extent slowed yesterday, with the lowest extent gain in over a week (57481 km^2). That low value brings us down to right at the average in the JAXA record (just a touch lower, actually). That leaves it with the 2nd greatest growth in the JAXA record since the minimum, 54532 km^2 lower than 2002 (which had its minimum 9 days earlier). However, 2002 performed relatively poorly on Sept 30, so with a gain of about 80000 km^2, this year would end up with the best extent increase from the minimum to Sept 30 in the JAXA record. The average gain over the last 8 days is about 77k, so I think we’ve got a 50% shot or higher at reaching this. Passing 2009 by Sept 30 is a different story though. It’d require roughly 109k of increase, so its probability is probably 5% or less.
CT’s area measure, on the other hand, had a day that would make any polar bear beam. Gain was 135524 km^2, beating the average by about 50k. Area gains since the minimum are now blowing away anything in the last 10 years. Oh, and we passed 2009. 🙂 Unfortunately, I don’t have my area spreadsheet as detailed (yet) as my extent spreadsheet, otherwise I’d give you some additional figures.
Hmm, given the massive area gains yesterday, maybe I should raise my probabilities for extent performance on Sept 30…
-Scott
Thanks for the computations & updates scott.
Actually Pips suddenly showed Frasm Strait Exhaust. Latest JAXA gain
8,906 (preliminary)
… won’t stay for long. though. Maybe a day of Loss, quickly ending because:.
The storms in the “Hurricane Graveyard” may be starting to merge. It is getting quite Crowded. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/map/images/fnl/mslp_01.fnl.html
Mr Vuckovitch: (Sorry: I am probably mangling the name) is there some E-M reason why Hurricanes travel to the Arctic & just sit there ? Sounds like it should be electrical.